12/8/2023 0 Comments Wild life park oregon![]() ![]() They are taller & heavier than a great egret, but smaller than a sandhill crane. They’re known for their long legs, curved neck, and thick, dagger-like bill. Great blue herons are the largest heron species in North America standing around four feet tall. Bring your binoculars or borrow a pair from the Haystack Rock Awareness Program whose naturalists will help you identify them. The easiest place to view Tufted Puffins on the Oregon Coast is to venture to Haystack Rock in Cannon Beach during summer low tides. Puffin chicks tend to fledge at night, and it is thought that the stars guide them out to sea where they will stay for 3 years before returning to the same nesting site where they were hatched to breed. ![]() As the pufflings grow, the parents place fish closer to the burrow entrance, gradually moving their young closer to the outside world. Parents take turns caring for their young and can carry up to 20 fish or squid at a time back to the pufflings that are kept concealed in their burrows. Tufted Puffins mate for life, and return to the same breeding ground each year, where they lay a single egg in their nesting burrows that can be dug up to 6 feet deep into the slopes atop cliffs and rocks. Adult puffins “fly” under water with their wings, diving up to 200 feet in pursuit of prey. They spend most of their time on open ocean, returning to shore to nest from April-August on top of cliffs and offshore rocks along the Oregon Coast. Sometimes described as flying footballs, they are rotund little seabirds with upright postures. Perhaps the most recognizable Oregon seabird, Tufted Puffins are mostly depicted in their breeding plumage with their red-rimmed eyes, comically large, orange bills, red feet, white faces, and yellow head plumes.
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